Microsoft confirmed that its enterprise cloud service has earned an approval from the European privacy regulators, claiming to be the first cloud provider to meet the high standards of EU cloud privacy law.
The company’s enterprise cloud services, namely Microsoft Azure (recently rebranded from Windows Azure), Office 365, Dynamics CRM and Windows Intune have successfully met the European Union (EU) privacy standards. The approval was granted by the “Article 29 Data Protection Working Party.”
“By acknowledging that Microsoft’s contractual commitments meet the requirements of the EU’s Model Clauses, Europe’s privacy regulators have said, in effect, that personal data stored in Microsoft’s enterprise cloud is subject to Europe’s rigorous privacy standards no matter where that data is located,” Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith said.
“This is especially significant given that Europe’s Data Protection Directive sets such a high bar for privacy protection.”
Microsoft said it will soon begin sending out notices to current customers related to the new standards that will be effective starting July 1, for them to benefit from the privacy recognition.
“The EU approval requires that customers execute a short, standardized addendum to their current agreements in order to take advantage of this new recognition, and we will create a very simple process to facilitate this,” added Smith.
Microsoft’s enterprise cloud services customers will now be able to use the cloud services to move data freely through cloud from Europe to the rest of the world.
“Ultimately, customers will entrust their information to the cloud only if they have confidence that it will remain secure there,” said Smith.
“This week’s approval by the European data protection authorities is another important step in ensuring customers trust Microsoft’s cloud services.”